Lady Gaga Said Her Heavy Drug Use Led to ‘Disaster’

Before Lady Gaga made it big, she moved into a small New York apartment where she made music and, she said, took a lot of drugs. Gaga said her drug use began to spiral out of control, eating up her money and the time she wanted to use for music. She recalled one particularly low moment that she did not want her fans to emulate.

Lady Gaga said drug use early in her career became a major problem for her

In the early 2000s, Gaga moved from her parents’ home to a small apartment on the Lower East Side.

“About six years ago I moved downtown to Stanton Street and I lived there for three years,” she told Vanity Fair in 2010. “In a tiny, 400-square-foot apartment — just me and my keyboard, with the kitchen in the living room and the turntable next to the toaster. I had my keyboard and my bed and a dream. I had jobs, paid my own rent, and made music by myself. [At first] it was a very inspired time — just leaving my parents and forcing myself to survive on my own.”

Before long, though, she began doing a lot of cocaine.

“I was so high I couldn’t see the roaches beneath my feet,” she said. “I used to do lines on a Bible in my room.”

She recalled one particularly low point

Gaga recalled a time when she used cocaine in order to prepare for an important meeting with a record label.

“I was laying in my bed on my stomach — this is so sick — but I was eating a salad, and I got a phone call: Can you be at this restaurant in 30 minutes? So-and-so big record executive wants to meet you,” she said. “And the salad was like a really unhealthy salad; it was like fried chicken or something. So I said, ‘I’ll be right there.’ I got up, went to the bathroom, threw up the salad, did a line of coke, went to the meeting. I was completely mental and had just been through so much.”

She emphasized that she did not want her fans to do the same. Her drug use had been a low point in her life.

“If you print that, I do not want my fans to ever emulate that or be that way,” she said. “I don’t want my fans to think they have to be that way to be great. It’s in the past. It was a low point, and it led to disaster.”

Lady Gaga said there was 1 drug she wouldn’t touch

Though she said she didn’t use cocaine nearly as much after fame, it was still part of her life in a small way.

“I won’t lie; it’s occasional,” she said. “And when I say occasional, I mean maybe a couple of times a year. I really can’t do [cocaine] anymore. I haven’t done it in, oh, probably six months.”

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She said one drug she would never touch was heroin.

“I have had some friends that have heroin problems, [but] I have never done heroin, I’ve never snorted it, never really looked at it whenever it’s been in the room,” she said. “I’m terrified of heroin.”

How to get help: In the U.S., contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration helpline at 1-800-662-4357.